Makindu Dental Project

Makindu is a small town, 100 miles from Nairobi (the capital of Kenya) on the highway to the port city of Mombasa. Makindu played a prominent role as a service point when the Uganda Railway was completed in 1902 at Port Florence on Lake Victoria (which is now Kisumu). Skilled Sikh pioneers settled in Makindu played a prominent role on the railway’s advance from Mombasa. The project is based at the Sikh Temple Makindu which was built in 1926, though its roots are believed to have been present way before then. As a service to the local population most of whom live below the poverty line, a hospital was added to the Temple Complex 20 years ago. There were neither dental facilities nor dental professionals in Makindu. (In the U.K. there is 1 dentist for 1500 persons, in Kenya there is 1 dentist for 40000 persons.)In the year 2000, Rotarian Gurdip Bahra’s friends and relatives organised a Dental Camp at the hospital. Over 500 people turned up. A very basic check-up was performed with majority needing extractions carried out on ordinary chairs by three voluntary dentists. A rudimentary dental chair was donated to the hospital and regular quarterly Camps started taking place. In 2008 Rotarian Gurdip Bahra who was attending a religious function at the Makindu Temple took a team of dentists from his extended family from the U.K. to another successful Camp. The Rotary Club of Maidenhead decided to adopt ‘Makindu Dental Clinic’ as a very worthwhile and cost effective Quadrilateral Project supported by sister Rotary Clubs of Bonn Sud-Bad Godesberg (Germany), Saint-Cloud (France), Tivoli (Italy). This resulted in equipping the Dental Suite with two new dental chairs, an X-ray unit and instruments.Then International Committee Chairman, Frank Knowles travelled to Makindu to inaugurate a regular Clinic in December 2009. In the 5th year of operation, what started off as Consultation, Medicine and Extraction Camp is now a fully-fledged DENTAL CLINIC serving 60 – 80 patients every other week carrying out:

- Extractions- Scaling/Polishing- Prophylaxis- Filling - anterior composites, posterior amalgam- X-rays- Providing medicines- Referral of patients screened for oral cancers to national hospitalsThe Rotary Club of Maidenhead has continued to support the project and all treatments are carried out free of cost as the patients are too poor to contribute. Success of the project is also largely due to the management of Sikh Temple Makindu that not only provides a safe and secure environment with excellent infrastructure but also provides free accommodation and food to the professional dental staff who travel to Makindu from Nairobi. Our very special thanks to Dr. Nduati who has been running the clinic for the last 5 years and to Dr. P.S. Jandu our project co-ordinator who has been involved with the clinic long before Rotary involvement.